61340 Vorabseiten_e - Unabhängige Expertenkommission Schweiz

Table 4: A few examples of transit permits for war materials
Permits issued by the Federal Customs Office (Oberzolldirektion)
(with the agreement of the Division of Foreign Affairs)
March 1940 100 tons of cartridges from Germany to Italy, destined for Japan
June 1940 3 cases of aircraft materials weighing 560 kilos, from France to Yugoslavia
Nov. 1941 1,25 million cartridge cases without detonators, 145g each,
from Germany to Italy
Jan. 1942 600 kg hunting powder from Sweden to Portugal
Feb. 1942 47 kg pistol cartridges from Germany to Italy
June 1942 1 vehicle containing 20 kegs of dynamite clycerine (11,645 tons)
from Germany to Italy
June 1942 Aircraft engines for repair (6.3 tons) from Sweden to Italy
Source: FA, E 2001 (D) -/3, vol. 352. See also document 7, appendix 6 in: Forster, Transit, 2001 (Publications
of the ICE) p. 199.
became increasingly difficult to obtain. With the fall of Mussolini and the
occupation of Italy by the Wehrmacht, the list of goods for which a permit was
required now expanded to include «dual use» goods, such as radios or truck
engines.
The possibility of clandestine weapons consignments caused disquiet among
the Allies, and also preoccupied the Swiss army command. Only serious controls
would have been able to eliminate all doubt and put an end to any abuse of the
freedom to transit goods. There could be little certainty if the coal wagons were
merely to be examined from above at a checkpoint, or if the certificates accompanying
sealed wagons were simply to be checked. It would of course have been
impossible – and this was the excuse put forward – to carry out a detailed search
of every wagon. Traffic would have come to a standstill, and the customs officials
would have been unable to cope with such a task, even with reinforcements from
the army. On the other hand, regular spot checks could have discovered possible
hidden consignments and deterred the Germans. Only one systematic
inspection was carried out – following a complaint from the British – in
Muttenz in July 1941. Nothing was found, but this negative result did not
prove anything. Nor can the current state of research offer any new findings on
this point. However, it can be stated that lax controls were not in keeping with
the duty of diligence imposed on neutral states by the neutrality law. 7
Transport from south to north
The authorities paid considerably greater attention to the increasing southnorth
movements of the war years than they did to southbound transit.
Consignments totalled 15,000–20,000 tons per month in the pre-war period
and up to summer 1940. They increased to 30,000 tons per month in 1941 and
to more than 60,000 tons per month in the spring of 1944. The goods involved
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